Right Thinking from the Left Coast

Tag: when D.A.’s go bad

Michael Nifong was the poster boy for DA malfeasance. In an effort to win re election in a largely black community, he took a case to trail and bent every rule in the book in the process;

As the details of the case emerged, Nifong came under severe attack not only from advocates of the indicted students but by news sources such as 60 Minutes,[13] The Washington Post,[14] and the Los Angeles Times.[15] The criticisms focused on a series of actions taken by Nifong: that he went public with a series of accusations that later turned out to be untrue; that he exaggerated and intensified racial tensions; that he unduly influenced the Durham police investigation; that he tried to manipulate potential witnesses; that he refused to hear exculpatory evidence prior to indictment; that regulations on the conduct of an identification exercise were breached by failure to include “dummy” photographs; that he had never spoken directly to the alleged victim about the accusations; and that he made misleadingly incomplete presentations of various aspects of the evidence in the case (including DNA results).

After the case fell apart the the boys were released it became apparent that prosecutorial misconduct was committed and the civil rights of the accused were violated. Well, it’s happening all over again;

The George Zimmerman defense has recently gotten a lucky break. Angela Corey, Florida’s state attorney and the prosecutor against Zimmerman, has been indicted by a citizens’ grand jury for allegedly falsifying an arrest warrant and the complaint that led to Zimmerman being charged with the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin.

The indictment accuses Corey of allegedly withholding photographs of Zimmerman’s head after the incident. Also, Corey allegedly falsely signed an arrest warrant under oath without including the pictures as evidence. Critics claim that Corey rushed the arrest warrant through because activists were rallying around the Trayvon Martin shooting, demanding that Zimmerman be charged with murder. Critics argue that Corey was attempting to secure a reelection with the support of the activists.

Talk about deja vu all over again. This is the same kind of shenanigans that Nifong pulled. A rush is judgment in an attempt to placate a loud and boisterous segment of the community, and to curry favor with that segment, all for political gain.

George Zimmerman has had his life totally turned upside down. The death threats, the fear of even leaving his house (having had to move out of his house and to an undisclosed location), not being able to work, to go out, to do anything normal. And there is a good possibility that he will be sent to prison, not because of the evidence against him (still waiting for that to present itself in court) but because of racial tensions within the community, fanned partly by this overzealous DA.

The entire weight of the judicial system needs to fall on those that knowing subvert that system for their own personal gain. It would be sweet if GZ could extract some financial remuneration directly from this women’s bank account in the form of a civil judgment. But that is assuming that she would not take the coward’s way out like Niphong and declare bankruptcy first. Disbarment, a public trial, some jail time, and a monetary settlement, this is what she needs in her future.